Create contours from elevation points

Surveyors, land-use engineers, and architects often need to create contours that show the elevation of land. You can easily do this using the SPLINE command.

First, set an easily visible point style. Choose Format > Point to do this. (This is the PDMODE system variable.)

Then use the POINT command to insert the points into the drawing. If you have a list of points in an external file, you can create a script file that sets PDMODE, starts the POINT command, and inserts all the points. You’ll need to strip the external file of everything except the points and then format them (in a text-only file) so that each one is on a separate line.

Finally, use the SPLINE command. Use the NODE osnap variable to snap to the points.